Photo by Ilya S. Savenok
[Editor’s Note—Warning, this post contains racist quotes.]
On the track “Moon Song,” off her critically acclaimed album Punisher, Phoebe Bridgers takes a shot at rock legend Eric Clapton. On the song’s third verse she sings:
We hate Tears In Heaven
But it’s sad that his baby died
The lyric is a reference to Clapton’s 1992 song, “Tears In Heaven,” where he mourns the death of his four-year-old son, Conor. The track was Clapton’s biggest hit in the US, peaking at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Bridgers elaborated on why she isn’t a fan of Clapton in an interview with Double J.
“I have such an Eric Clapton rant, because I think it’s just extremely mediocre music, but also he’s a famous racist,” said Bridgers. “Sometimes I think people are too problematic to be cancelled, or not relevant enough to be cancelled. I mean, it wouldn’t even make news if he said something racist today, because he went on a racist rant in the ‘60s or '70s that was very famous.”
Bridgers is referring to an infamous rant Clapton made on stage on August 5, 1976 in Birmingham, England, in support of far-right political candidate Enoch Powell. Clapton said:
Do we have any foreigners in the audience tonight? If so, please put up your hands… So where are you? Well wherever you all are, I think you should all just leave. Not just leave the hall, leave our country… I don’t want you here, in the room or in my country. Listen to me, man! I think we should send them all back. Stop Britain from becoming a black colony. Get the foreigners out. Get the wogs out. Get the coons out. Keep Britain white… The black wogs and coons and Arabs and f-cking Jamaicans don’t belong here, we don’t want them here. This is England, this is a white country, we don’t want any black wogs and coons living here. We need to make clear to them they are not welcome. England is for white people, man… This is Great Britain, a white country, what is happening to us, for f-ck’s sake?… Throw the wogs out! Keep Britain white!
For what it’s worth, Clapton later apologized for his comments and blamed his excessive drinking and drug use at the time. His rant helped spark the political and cultural movement Rock Against Racism.
In her interview, Bridgers also revealed that she doesn’t actually hate the song “Tears In Heaven.”
“The lyric used to be, ‘we hate Eric Clapton,’” she said. “It’s actually kind of worse now. Because it’s the dead baby song, which is a heartbreaking song. If I were to pick an Eric Clapton song, it’s up there with the ones that I actually like. So, it’s kind of a lie on the record, but it sounds more poetic.”
Read all the lyrics to Phoebe Bridger’s “Moon Song” on Genius now.
